Chicago Unveils Ambitious Safety Plan To Prevent Auto Accidents

Chicago is upgrading its pedestrian safety plans to curb car crashes. They integrated the development of pavement islands, chicanes, midblock curb bumpouts, and countdown timers at crossings. All such applications are pulled from a pool of 250 recommendations generated by Chicagoans that attended an event downtown to try to remedy the problem. The desired end result of these preventative measures is to reduce pedestrian injuries and fatalities. As it stands now, nearly 50 Chicago pedestrians are killed by vehicle related accidents annually.

The plan was developed after a series of public meetings. It calls for identifying and repairing two high-collision corridors and four dangerous intersections annually, basing the interventions on crash data. Chicago also aims to improve driver education, conduct police crackdowns on dangerous drivers, and implement tougher safety mandates for taxis.

The report is divided into sections such as:

Tools for Safer Streets: addresses the need for tools at intersections, corridors, and neighborhood streets.

Connectivity: deals with the creation of a “pedestrian network” that would enhance pedestrian access by bolstering available information (both static and real-time) and how that information is gathered, analyzed, and shared.

Livability: refers to the need for increased activities in public spaces as well as improve the overall quality of those spaces.

Health: refers to walkability. More specifically, increasing the length, frequency, and pleasure of walking through the city and running daily errands.

For further details on the plan, download this PDF, which mentions specific tactics and ideas to make Chicago (and other cities) a safer place.